Clear Case
by Cochrane
Summary: Someone stole a secret that is a key to immense wealth. The Mages Guild hires an investigator, who finds himself in more trouble than he asked for.
1. Clueless

_Disclaimer: Oblivion, it's characters, cities and everything else that belongs to Bethesda Softworks belongs to Bethesda Softworks and not to me. But let's be honest: If I needed to tell you that, then you shouldn't be reading a T rated story in the first place._

_Author's Note: I took quite some liberty with the environments of Oblivion, more relying on what could be there than what is actually there. I also made something that you could consider just a limitation of the game engine an essential part of my story. I hope you don't mind._

Once again, I was lost. Everything was turning around me and I was standing in the middle, wondering where I were, where I came from and where I was going to. The Imperial City, with all its circles had gotten the better of me again.

I'm telling you, I ain't the only one who has this problem. When you walk through the Imperial City, you'll happen on at least two people per hour who walk around, murmuring "He said to get out at 270°, but was it clockwise or counter-clockwise?". All races, all genders and all professions are affected. The only exception are mages, who murmur something about one and a half pi instead.

Finally I arrived in the most cheap area you could find, near an entrace where a plaque read: Septimus Nonius, Private Investigator. I fingered for my key and found out it was broken. That didn't matter much, because the lock was broken, too. For a short time I wondered whether I should tell my landlord about this situation, or whether I should continue trying to stay as far away from him as I could.

The inside was as unordered as I could possibly manage. I usually try to maintain a creative chaos atmosphere, but I simply have too little posessions to manage a good chaos. Some old issues of the Black Horse Courier were lying on my desk. My sword was well hidden under my bed, which itself was at the far end of the room. A window was luxury that I could not possibly afford. I took a swing of the wine I just bought, lit my small oil lamp and sat down behind my old desk, putting my boots on my desk. Then I started waiting for customers.

The Skooma-bottle was half empty when finally someone entered. An older Dark Elf man, dressed in robes that mages usually wear appeared in front of my desk and looked completely unimpressed by my would-be chaos. Clearly, he had seen worse, but he wasn't particularly thrilled by my environment either. He looked intelligent. I did not think that he was afraid of something, angry or shocked, merely annoyed about the situation that made him contact someone like me at all.

"I'm looking for an investigator and I heard you're the… the…"

"Best?" I offered to help

"Cheapest. Listen, I've got a little problem that I would need someone to take care of."

"What kind of problem?"

Most of my problems were actually quite boring. Checking whether wives or husbands were as loyal as they claimed to be, searching for a stolen ring that was actually just in the wrong drawer and so on. My customer did not look like the kind of man who would ask me about such issues. This one looked interesting. Then again, interesting could be bad, too.

"I'm a mage, and I've had a little idea that looks quite promising. Now someone seems to have stolen my notes, which bothers me a lot. I want you to find who stole them, get them back, and make sure nobody took a copy."

That sounded easy enough. Jobs that sound easy either aren't, or are badly paid. Most often, both. But looking at my room, and thinking about the rent that I was still owing, I had no choice but to accept.

"What kind of invention is it you're talking about, sir?" I asked.

"Transparent windows," he said.

I nearly spat out my wine again, only at the last second remembering how much it had cost me. Of course I knew about the expensive glass showcases that only counts could afford, and I had drunk more than my share of alcoholic beverages out of transparent bottles. If you had the money, there were always glass armour and weapons, which were partly transparent. But in school I learned that something as large as a window was impossible with current technology.

"Transparent as in I can see what's going on on the other side?"

"Yes. Fully clear. You won't notice it's there," he said calmly, although I think I saw a little smile. He seemed to be proud. He had all right to be.

Normal windows were made out of some semi-transparent material that made the interior less dark and could give you an educated guess about the sky color, but it had never been possible to look out. If he had managed to find a way to make this possible, counts, kings, emperors not only all over Tamriel, but all over the known world would be spending the last money their tax-payers earned just to get it. My opposite was a rich man, more wealthy than most other people in the Empire, and he knew it. Of course, the problem remained: Where was his invention now?

"You might want to start by telling me the details" I suggested.

---

Next morning, I was standing in some arcane room in the Arcane University. A battle-mage who was clearly reluctant to let me in stood beside me as my escort, ready to kill me if I should make one wrong move. Avius Nicolen, my employer, showed me his office. It was tidy, with a bed, some mixtures, many books and scrolls and a huge, transparent window leaned against a bookshelf. I showed myself dutifully impressed, but Nicolen just declared it useless.

"The important thing is the formula and the instructions to create more of its kind. This single window is just an anecdote in history" he explained.

I started looking around, for clues and for the notes. I did not really expect to find the latter, because the office was very tidy and Nicolen had told me that he had already used all kinds of search spells he could possibly know, but it never hurt to try. Someone had managed to get past some really good locks, while leaving only very tiny marks. Either the intruder did not break any lock picks, or he took them with him when he departed.

The room lacked any window, which I found ironic. The only way to enter was through a door, though a mage might have teleported in. Nicolen dismissed this possibility because the aura of the room was not right, whatever that meant. He himself was outside when the break-in happened, testing some methods to further enforce the glass that were apparently quite dangerous to try in closed rooms. Everyone I asked on the way in had seen lots of people, but nobody particular. I quickly concluded that I could not find out more here.

---

Next, I started enquiring the usual sources. The Imperial City Guard more or less said that they hadn't heard of the incident, that their own enquiries were unsuccessful and stopped because they didn't care, and that they wouldn't tell me anything at all. I didn't expect more and turned to my next source.

In the Waterfront district I entered a small, broke-down shack, where my informant lived. It was a member of the Thieves Guild. The Thieves Guild and I had a neat little arrangement: They would tell me what cases they were involved in (which were fewer than you might assume), and I would immediately close these cases and report that I could not solve them. Obviously, they thought I was too unimportant to be any risk for them, and, to be honest, they were right.

I liked visiting my informant. She was an Altmer woman, about my age, and we were good friends. Quickly, I told her what happened.

"No, we are not involved in this. We really don't like stealing someone's ideas around here," she answered. "We've heard about it, though. Rumor has it that you might want to look at Clothilde Dupont."

"Never heard about her. Who is she?" I replied.

"An old, rich Breton, trying to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible. She owns several large ships, and she also owns a few egg mines in Morrowind that she leases to contractors for a share of their profits. She has several other businesses, and she also owns the buildings where some of our inns operate. That way, we have contact to her. She is a very dishonest woman," my friend said in disgust. For a bunch of criminals, the thieves guild have a very strict moral codex, and I've found that they held more strictly to theirs than any of the so-called honorable guilds.

"And where did the rumor come from?" I wondered.

"Can't tell you that, sorry. Let's just say we have our sources," she said with a wicked grin.

"So if I wanted to find out more about her, maybe talk with her, where would I go?" I asked.

"Well, she used to live in Kvatch, but was away on business when the gates opened." My friend fell silent. So did I. We both had lost friends there. In fact, I knew nobody who hadn't lost friends there.

"Officially, Clothilde now lives in Skingrad. However, I know for a fact that her not-so-nice operations work out of Kvatch again," she continued after a while.

"Kvatch? What on earth would make her go there? Most people wouldn't want to come within a mile of that town."

"That's the point. Besides, in and under the ruins a lot of things can be easily hidden. Many houses had hidden cellars that weren't destroyed."

"All right, that's where I'm going to look. Thanks, girl, it's always a pleasure talking with you." I said, getting ready to leave.

"No problem" she said, smiling.

"Oh, and Septimus: That women really pissed me off, just as well as the rest of the guild. She is too important for us, so we can't make her pay, but if you find a way to annoy her, I'd appreciate it."

I promised to do my best and walked out.

---

A day later, I found myself in Skingrad. From here, I planned to first take a look at Clothilde Dupont's house, and then move on to Kvatch. Her house was easy enough to find. When I asked whether I could visit her, an older Breton who was apparently her servant flatly, and in a very rude manner, denied.

Next, I asked at the castle. I was told that the count was not available for talk, that Skingrad considered itself lucky to have someone as important as Mme Dupont as a citizen, and that they would honor her wish for privacy. I also was offered to buy a house there, to which I declined.

Finally, I went to the place where you can find the real information: The local pub. It was a usual pub in a usual house, with the usual assortment of guests. I quickly became friends with one of the locals, by buying him a drink. While he had apparently no idea how important she was, he was obviously not a good friend of Mme Dupont's.

"I have a little house with garden, close to the city wall. One day, one of my trees had fallen over. The next day, another. I checked and saw that the ground was much more loose than it used to. In the end, even my garden wall started crumbling down. And you know what? The trees, and the patch in the wall, they all form a line. You want to know where that line leads?" he said and paused.

"Go on!" I urged him, hoping to get as much information out of him without having to buy another drink.

"That line leads directly to that Dupont-misses' house. I'll bet you she did that!" he said.

"Not possible! Why would she want to do that?" I exclaimed.

He lowered his voice.

"Well, I think she is jealous. We have an annual garden contest here in Skingrad, and the last three years, I've always won. I think she wants to win next time, and to do that, she sabotages my garden!"

"Really? How cruel!" I said. I had my doubts about his logic, but I still wanted to know more. Sadly, that was all he could tell me. When I got out of the pub again, I decided to check that line.

I easily found the garden and saw that the man was right. While it wasn't obvious at first glance, an assortment of tiny earth movement, cracks walls, small lower areas on the street and so on could be seen. Nothing was really large, but if you looked closely, there was a clear line leading from Dupont's house to the city wall. Most likely, someone had dug a tunnel and while doing this, caused the earth to fall down.

I walked through the city gate and went to the other side of the wall. There, for a short while the trail continued, but it vanished in a forest. I searched for about an hour, but found nothing more. Still, it had caught my attention. It seemed to be directed directly at Kvatch.

---

The next day, I decided to walk to Kvatch. When I arrived there, it was still quite early in the morning. A couple of priests of the imperial cult were there, praying for the dead. I gave them a little money, more than I should have with my current financial situation. The city still was in ruins, nobody had yet tried to move back in.

As so many others, I had heard only third- and fourth-hand accounts about what happened here, but I used to think I could imagine what it must have been like. I was wrong. It is impossible to describe how shocked I was when I arrived. The smoke had settled and the Daedra had been all killed long ago, but still, signs of the hopeless fight was evident everywhere I looked. There even were a few body pieces left. I did not stop long enough to decide whether these were mortal or daedric.

It took me an hour or so before I recovered enough from the shock and could start working. The environment was a challenge, as I hardly dared enter the broken ruins. Everywhere I turned, some stones came tumbling down. When I decided that I was finished, I hadn't found anything interesting. The priests had apparently already left, too. Slowly, I made my way back to Skingrad. Instead of taking the road, I decided to walk cross-country, in a faint hope of finding more evidence of the tunnel. My investigations had arrived at a dead point. While I was walking, suddenly an arrow hit me.


	2. Closing in

_Disclaimer: Odly enough, I still don't own Oblivion or any related things. Bethesda does. Strange, isn't it?_

_Author's Note: Thank you all for the nice reviews, I hope you like this part as well._

In my opinion, stopping when an arrow hits you is the most stupid thing you could possibly do. That way, only more arrows will hit you. Instead, I changed my direction and ran to a fallen tree behind which I could find cover. Two more arrows got fired at me, but missed.

As I vanished behind the tree, I thought about the situation. The arrows had come from behind. This could have meant that someone was following me, or that someone was already waiting and shot only after I passed by. Carefully, I removed the arrow that hit me. I was lucky because it only stuck in my clothes, not in my flesh.

I lied flat for a few moments. When I looked up again, another arrow flew unnervingly close past my face. But this time I could see the archer, who was sitting up in a tree. I quickly ran around in a zig-zag course and tried to hide in the woods. Then, I slowly approached his tree. He had not seen me yet. As it turned out, it was a young Bosmer woman who was far to well dressed to be a bandit. Somehow, I had the impression that I had already seen her, but I could not really place her face at the moment. I drew my sword and, with a jump, cut into the branch she was sitting on. The branch cracked and she fell down. I quickly held my sword to her throat and kicked her bow, which she had lost, away. She had no other arms for close quarters, which proved that she was likely no expert.

"Now, darling, what was that about?"

"Killing you, of course, butthead."

I could see that she was frightened, but still, she managed to be cheeky.

"You won't believe it but I knew that already, thank you very much. Who sent you?"

"Me? Sent? Nobody sent me."

"Of course, and nobody killed the emperor." I said, casually shifting my sword a little closer to her throat.

She remained silent.

"I really don't want to do this. You know, threatening girls like you. I always wanted to be a lumberjack" I continued, tickling her with the sword.

"Oh, spare me the same old song. Kill me or don't, but don't expect me to talk" she managed to say. Her behavior did not match her attitude, as she was shaking with fear now. She tried to roll over to escape, but I stepped on her arm, so she couldn't move.

"All right", she said, "come closer, I don't want to say it out loud."

"Babe, I know better than to 'come closer' to someone who wanted to kill me. Now, do you have anything to say or not?"

To my surprise, she screamed "No!" and kicked me between the legs. This was slightly distracting, so she managed to escape. I tried to follow her, but was seriously hindered by the pain. When I finally realized that I had no chance of catching her, I sat down and waited for a few minutes before I went back to Skingrad. Nobody tried to attack me again. I went to my rented bed and had a very uneasy sleep that night.

---

The next morning, I started asking whether someone had seen my attacker. Of course, she was not stupid enough to show her face in Skingrad, so I did not find her. Several people had seen several young Bosmer women at several seperate occasions, but none of their descriptions fit mine. The watch captain only told me that I had probably encountered a bandit, told me to stay on the roads and started whining about the lack of personnel he had to deal with crime in the woods.

On the road, I met the guy who had talked with me yesterday. He considered me a buddy of his now and insisted on buying me a drink. While we were sitting in the bar, he had nothing new to add to his story, but still told it again as if it was new. I listened politely and asked him whether he had seen any unusual activity around Mme Dupont's house. Of course, he had not, which he told me in great detail. When he was finished, I was close to sleeping. Then, something hit me.

"Excuse me, did you say that she only gets food for two people delivered to her house? Not much more?" I wondered.

"Yes, she's quite stingy."

I did not tell him, but it struck me that she had probably quite a lot of people working for her goal. If they were working in the underground, there had to be some way to keep them fed. Apparently, that was not through the tunnel to Mme Duponts house. The entry had to be somewhere else.

My mind drifted again, to the sniper that tried to get me. Suddenly, a thought occurred to me. This was not the first time I had been attacked on a mission, but it was quite early for that. As far as I knew, I hadn't found out anything interesting yet, but I've already managed to annoy someone enough that he or she wanted to see me dead.

It was very unlikely that my few questions really caused this trouble. More likely, someone thought I had seen something I should not have seen. Now I needed to make sure that I actually saw it. I kept on wondering what it was that I should not have seen. Finally, I remembered where I had seen the young girl that tried to shoot me before. She was among the priests I had seen in Kvatch that morning.

I returned to Kvatch, carefully, and made sure that nobody saw or followed me. This time around, I did not care for the ruins and the body parts. I had a mission and a sense of urgency, and nothing would stop me right now.

There was no problem finding the place where the priests were, now deserted. It was a small field close to the eastern city wall. Most likely a house had stood here before the attacks, because I could still make out some fundaments. Some wall remnants cut off a small piece of the place. Upon closer inspection, those were not actual ruins. While the stones were old, someone had put them together only recently, and it lacked the dust in the corners that the actual ruins had. The wall protected some smaller area, which was full of what was apparently meant to be debris.

Someone had tried to wipe footsteps away, but done a rather bad job of it. Whoever entered here last was probably in a hurry and forgot about the usual security procedures. I would not be surprised if my new girlfriend happened to be the one. Not very wise. Still, it took me some time to find the trapdoor that was carefully hidden. The lock proved too strong and difficult for me to break or pick, but at least I knew that I was going in the right direction now. As this was the public access to whatever was below, and probably also to the tunnel, I decided to wait somewhere hidden and see what happened there.

It was not really difficult to find a place where I could hide safely and still had a great view, and I had brought a bottle of water and some food. The lack of toilets proved to be more of a challenge, but I hope you understand if I do not go into this topic in greater detail.

The night was long, uneventful and boring. I could not afford to let anything slip past me while I slept, so I had to stay awake all the time. I saw a couple who were in love and decided this was a good place to be undisturbed, but decided that it was too scary for them once they had spent five minutes looking for a nice place. Several animals showed up, but none remained longer than necessary in the city. A bunch of bandits came, stayed for a short while and left in a hurry again. None of this was my concern.

About two hours after midnight, I heard a muffled sound from underground. Shortly later, a group of three people, clad in black, came out of the trapdoor. They looked like they were sent to kill anyone who might have witnessed their apparent accident, but they seemed to think that nobody was around at this time of the night and did not bother to do a thorough check. In fact, they talked so loudly amongst themselves that I could overhear parts of their conversation.

The largest one, who had a male voice, cursed and said, "Why do these stupid mages always have to make so much noise? I've seen enough of the process to know that sound is not part of it."

"I'm more wondering why they have to do all their stuff at night. It's not like there are many people here during the day, and I'd love to see the sun for a change. It's not like we have vampires in our team." This one sounded like my attacker.

"Sure, we all have seen how effective you are during the day, haven't we?" a third, male, voice asked, apparently referring to my encounter with her.

"Oh, she sure has a point. Do you think she'd be any better at night?" the first guy asked.

I considered this unfair. Sure, she did not hit me, then lost track of me and ended up cornered by me, so she was anything but a professional. But still, she had left quite an impression on me with her flight. On the other hand, that impression was certainly not my most happy one, so I decided to remain quiet and not correct them. They bickered for a few more moments, then returned to their underground lab.

In my head, a plan started to form, and after I was confident that they were gone, I started to put that plan in action.

---

The next interesting event occured close to morning, when it started to slowly get less dark. I was trying to fend off the sleep that was slowly trying to get me, but it was a battle that I was about to loose when I finally saw someone approaching the trapdoor. The priests that I had seen the day earlier returned, but this time, they looked far less spiritual. They did some quick checks around the place, set up one of them as guard and then started normal discussions. I was not able to make out any details, but they did apparently not like their job very much and wondered about the risk now that someone had apparently found out about their operation. Two of them were carrying what looked like a portable altar.

When they finally arrived at the place where I had seen them the other day, none of them bothered to pray. Instead, they secretly went around the wall and took their altar with them. Someone opened the trapdoor from inside, and the pseudo-priests opened a hidden door in their altar. A few baskets full of what seemed like food and water were given to the one in the trapdoor. In return, a bunch of empty baskets as well as some papers were handed back. The whole exchange took less than five minutes. When they locked the door again, nobody took any care whether the lock had really worked. So far, my plan was working well.

The priests lingered around for half an hour more, probably to make sure that they did not return too early to arise suspicion. When they finally left, they took great care of making sure that their door was well hidden. Of course, that did not help them at all, but they did not know yet that I knew about their hideout. I was quite sure that at the first possibility, they would hide somewhere in the woods and change in more usual clothing, then go at different times back to their hometowns.

I waited for about ten minutes after they were gone. Then, I carefully approached the trapdoor. The lock was open. That came as no surprise to me, because I had manipulated it before. I was quite proud of the trick, which made sure that a lock, once opened, could not be closed again. You have to forgive that I will not tell you my secret here, but it involves small iron stripes and about half of all the spells I know. Slowly, I turned the handle, opened the door and entered. I was inside.


	3. Crashing

_Disclaimer: I don't own Oblivion. My sister does, but she lets me play at her computer. Oh, wait, you mean copyright? That's Bethesda._

_Author's Note: Yes! It's been two years in the making, but the final chapter is here! Who'd have thought? Me not, that's for sure. Notice that since it has been so long, there may be some consistency issues. I hope you can forgive me._

The first thing that hit me inside was something I did not see. I had run head-on in a fully transparent door. Slightly cursing Mr Nicolen, I looked for the hinges and found a way to open the door. The idea must have been to alert the ones inside to any intruder, who would, just like me, run into the door and make a lot of noise. Luckily, the door was not very noisy and there seemed to be other problems on the inside, so nobody bothered to check for me.

Ironically, the problem that had everybody concerned was me. Lying in the shadows I could hear people shouting.

"So apparently he is nowhere to be found in Skingrad, right? And sweet little Ylotril here was too stupid to shoot him when she had the chance. Of course, nobody bothered to check whether he is somewhere in Kvatch, right?" I heard a loud, male voice shout.

"Hey, I would have loved to see you trying. You couldn't tell an arrow from a bow if your life depended on it" the girl countered.

"Unlike you, I don't walk around claiming that I can shoot a dove on the Imperial City Tower while standing in Leiiawin" the man replied. If this was a bad play, I would have expected the two of them to kiss now, but of course this was reality. Their contempt seemed genuine and mutual.

"Silence, both of you." a female voice with a breton accent commanded. Immediately, the two stopped talking. This must have been Mme Dupont. I crawled a little further and could catch a glimpse of her. She did not look very special, just a normal, old Breton. However, she had the appearance of being powerful and confident. Even though she stood there in rather plain robes, she had a much more aristocratic look than any countess on her. She was nobody you could mess with easily, and at the moment, she looked annoyed.

"We are ready to ship our first delivery to Morrowind. This has to be done in complete secrecy, so that nobody will raise any doubt when we ship them back here and claim they come from Morrowind. That means the investigator has to be eliminated," she continued.

"I still don't see why we have to go through all the trouble with delivering from Morrowind" Ylotril whined.

"Are you thick or what? If we ship from here, the Mages Guild will sue our asses off. That means goodbye to your payment" the man said again.

"Well, why do you think they won't do that when we ship from Morrowind? We might just as well save us all that hassle and get sued either way."

"Do you doubt my plans?" Dupont asked. She said it calmly, but there was a threatening quality about her voice. "Morrowind is unique because it has the Telvanni house, which can do just as well in research as the mages guild. We can just claim that they invented the glass independently."

"Wait a second, can't the mages guild not just check that? They have a chapter in Morrowind as well," the man, now apparently having changed the sides, asked.

"You followed any rumors? Morrowind's houses are currently at each other's throats. Few ships come and leave headed to Morrowind, and the Mages Guild has closed most of it's guild halls there. Nobody in his right mind would go check there," my girl replied. Mme Dupont did not bother to comment, which was apparently considered as consent.

At that moment, someone who was clad in mage's robes entered the room that I was observing. He was visibly annoyed by all the trouble that was surrounding his work environment, and had a couple of scrolls under his arm.

"Well, we are ready down there for the first shipment. Now, if those dorks in security would get their act together, everything would be ready to go", he said, fully aware that the 'dorks in security' were standing right next to him. This earned him some very mean glances, which he ignored.

"We are running out of time. If we wait any longer, the ship will have to leave Anvil, and we'll have to wait another month before we can attempt again. The mission will continue as planned. Ylotril, Manius, you two will go and check the outside. Skuddiren, you go and tell the transporters that we are ready. The rest of the team stays here and helps preparing the glass." This was Dupont again. Her word was apparently law around here. This left me with a little problem: Two people were coming directly in my direction.

--

Suddenly, the man stopped.

"Hey, babe, wait for me, I need to pee." he shouted.

"You plan to release poison in here? I'd better run", was her reply.

"I'm taking off my trousers. Do you want to watch?" he asked, trying to be a macho.

"Oh, you know I'd love to, but I have to get out. Someone disgusting is lurking here." she said, sarcastically. This was apparently not the first time they had a conversation like that, and neither seemed really surprised with the results. Probably this was the reason why the two did not get along. She hurried out of the corrider, without even noticing me. I watched the man doing his business (and I did not enjoy the view).

In my opinion, it is a sign of bad style to ambush someone with his pants down, especially when it's literally. Besides, it is disgusting. I waited for the brief moment between him finishing his work and picking up his sword again before I attacked.

I kicked his sword away and poked him a little with mine. He tried to reach a dagger that he had hidden in his boot, but I was faster and gave him a nasty cut in the arm. He did not seem pleased with the way his little pause had been going. For a quick moment, it seemed like he wanted to scream (which could have had some impact), but then he decided that this was not manly enough and tried to engage me hand-to-hand. Apparently, he had not had much experience with hand-to-hand before, and was facing someone equipped with a sword. I think it suffices to say that he ended up lying on the ground, with some more cuts on his arms. It did not take long for me to tie him up and move him somewhere he wouldn't be seen until they decided to rebuild the city. With the girl outside and him out of the way, I was free to go inside.

Sneaking round a corner, I found the laboratory. Apparently, they had not started full-scale production yet, and there were only three people. The grand dame was nowhere to be seen, and it slowly dawned on me that I didn't have a plan. I could and should have called for mages guild backup, but they would never arrive in time (never mind the Imperial Guard, who didn't care about, well, anything right under their noses, I sometimes thought). So it was up to me alone to do the job. Luckily, I didn't have to care about evidence and a conviction this time, I just had to stop them from producing more glass.

All of the workers looked like they were not ones to pick a fight, but I still wanted to avoid any sort of battle, and people get heroic for the worst reasons. Luckily, I knew a little bit of alchemy. Not enough for spells, but enough to make a mess in a hurry. I grabbed a few vials of stuff I knew would work for my purposes and quickly mixed together a draught so evil that it isn't taught by any master of alchemy anywhere. Mainly because it has no use other than creating black smoke and smelling badly, of course, but that was just enough for me. I threw it in the laboratory, held a piece of cloth over my mouth and saw how the would-be mages ran outside, coughing loudly. The final one wasn't all stupid and he did actually pick up the formula, but I intercepted him quietly by a blow to a certain area you don't want to receive a blow to, given the choice. Going through the laboratory, I found three other copies of the formula, which must have been all that was there. I also found a little gold (hey, they were criminals, after all!) and, for reasons I really don't wish to know, a pair of Morrowind-style slave shackles. Having done my job, I went outside again.

Of course, the problem with my brilliant plan was that now the would-be priests were standing just in my exit way, but I had prepared for that and threw another of the smoke grenades outside. They were in panic, and apparently none of them could be bothered to look for their colleague which now shared a room with the group's official thug. I got out through a hole in another wall where apparently nobody of the Kvatch cleanup squad had bothered to look yet. Suddenly I heard a cracking sound, and the entire house under which the cellar was came crumbling down. Apparently my little drought had mixed with something it really shouldn't have. My prisoners were in another tunnel, so I wasn't really worried about anything, and walked back, satisfied that I had done my job well enough.

Suddenly, another arrow soared past me. Of course, I knew the marksman, and quickly found her location. She wasn't easy to miss on the stones, so I hid behind a small wall, walked past her and surprised her from behind.

"Again? Come on, this is getting boring."

"I'm not doing this for your amusement, you know."

"Then what for? The lab is destroyed. You failed." I'd have expected her to get mad at this, but she actually relaxed.

"Good, I was getting sick of this job."

"Well, I could be lying."

"I don't care. No sunlight, little pay and awful company, I'm out of here."

"My, my, who trained you? That's not the way a professional should talk."

She actually looked as if she wanted to cry, but quickly gained her composure again.

"Let's just say I picked the wrong job. Now, if you would kindly let me go, we'll never see each other again."

Normally I wouldn't have agreed, but despite all, she now seemed harmless enough, so I returned my sword to it's sheath and walked away. Finally, I heard her call.

"Hey! Thanks for not killing me!"

That girl was truly no professional. She'd never bring it far in her business, or even mine. I think I liked her better for that.

--

How much is a priceless secret worth? Not much, but I wasn't expecting much. My stories of bravery were largely ignored, and I had to argue for a good half an hour before I finally got paid for the bed I rented in Skingrad. Still, it was enough to pay off a few old debts and buy a new bottle of alcohol.

I returned to my office, and waited for a new customer.


End file.
